Colne to Skipton Railway Link
Graham P Jones Excerpts(5 years ago)
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Graham P. Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the proposed reinstatement of the Colne to Skipton railway link.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir George. It is interesting that the Government have sent the heavy rail Minister to respond to the debate. I hope he will make the commitments to Colne-Skipton that we all want, about long-overdue investment. It is of course my role, as Member of Parliament for Hyndburn, to champion prosperity and encourage investment in the area for the people I represent. That is why I have been so vocal on the issue. If we reinstate transport in the area—particularly the rail link—it will provide an opportunity for east Lancashire and beyond. I thank all the MPs who have come to the debate, and the council leaders and campaigners who have brought the campaign to the place where it is today—where a serious proposition is being considered. That is testimony to their hard work. I particularly want to thank Skipton East Lancashire Rail Action Partnership for the campaign that it has run over many years, which is appreciated by all in east Lancashire and west Yorkshire.
What we are talking about is 12 miles of railway, which stands between east Lancashire and west Yorkshire—a third trans-Pennine artery that connects the two, which was taken away many years ago. It would not take a great deal of money to put that rail link back. At the heart of the issue, for many constituents, is the north-south divide. There is a grievance about the fact that little money is spent in the north, and particularly in the area I am concerned with.
Julie Cooper (Burnley) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. Does he agree that the fact that we have to fight for 12 miles of railway track seems to make a mockery of the northern powerhouse?
Graham P. Jones
My hon. Friend is a tireless campaigner on rail and on the matter in question. She was at the forefront of campaigning to reinstate the Manchester link, from east Lancashire—albeit it is a second-rate one; at least we have got it now. She is quite right. The Institute for Public Policy Research has said that in London, for instance, £708 is spent on transport per head of population, but the average is £289 for the entire north of England. No wonder there is a north-south divide. People in the north see Crossrail 1, which is not yet completed, and Crossrail 2 already set up. That is after past projects such as Heathrow, Thameslink, and even Westminster tube station. All of that investment has cost the Exchequer billions of pounds, and there has been little for the north. It is right that people in the north feel that the Government should commit to the small stretch of 12 miles that we are discussing.
I hear arguments all the time about whether the reinstatement of the line would be economically viable. When will we use different indices for transport investment? The deprivation figures came out two weeks ago and the sub-region in question is the poorest in the country. If an economic case is to be made, there will never be an economic case for the poorest sub-region; at best it will be marginal, so there will never be investment and the indices will continue to plummet as they have. At some point the Government must step back and say that deprivation indices are a reason to invest. That would be the case in most other countries. It would be a question, not of using an economic model about the viability of the line, but of whether we are investing in people. That is the question: are we investing in people, instead of trying to count pounds, shillings and pence and reinvest in London and the south?
Conor McGinn (St Helens North) (Lab)
I am reluctant to say this under the chairmanship of the senior Merseyside Member, but although my constituency is in the Liverpool City Region, all points north and east, from railway stations such as Rainford, Garswood and Newton, go outside Merseyside. In my constituency people feel a strong Lancashire identity. Will my hon. Friend, who is a great champion of his constituency and of transport in the north, agree that we should work across boundary lines as the old county of Lancashire on issues of transport?
Graham P. Jones
My hon. Friend makes two points. First, St Helens is occupied Lancashire and needs to be liberated. He is right to say that St Helens looks north towards Lancashire, but there is also a serious point to be made about the importance of connecting east Lancashire to the port of Merseyside and the support that we get from Peel Ports, which involves passing through constituencies such as St Helens North. It is also about giving people in St Helens the opportunity to look in all directions—particularly north—and to have an east-west link available through Preston and the East Lancashire line and over the Pennines. My hon. Friend is right to raise that. The north-west itself benefits from any transport infrastructure investment, wherever it is, because it allows more mobility.
Before I discuss the line itself, I want to conclude what I was saying about the Government’s broken economic model, which is just about pounds, shillings and pence, and all the investments in the south. We apply that metric to railways but not to anything else. The Government are happy to hand out grants for town centres or housing, with no expectation of any return. However, as soon as it comes to the railways, there is an expectation of an economic model with some return. The Government abandon the policy that they apply in other cases for deprived areas. I do not understand the logic of that. Surely the logic should be that if transport will bring prosperity, industry, jobs and wages, that is what we should subsidise. We should subsidise rail investment and the railways if we want to lift people out of deprivation—not titivate town centres or whatever else the Government hand out grant money to. The current system for looking at investment is broken.
Julie Cooper
My hon. Friend raises an important point about investing in prosperity and people. The Todmorden curve link is an example of what he has said. It took years of campaigning to get that short link, but the evidence in Burnley and east Lancashire is that completing that section of railway has brought investment and much-needed jobs to the region.
Graham P. Jones
My hon. Friend is right. I do not have to hand the figures for Manchester Road station in Burnley, which is on that link. It is a circuitous route. It is not the old 30 minutes direct into Manchester; it is 60 minutes. None the less, passenger numbers at Accrington station have gone from, I think, 289,000 to 469,000— or thereabouts. I may be corrected afterwards, but it is not far off. That is a huge increase in numbers since the line was put in. The reinstatement of Colne-Skipton could only add to patronage and use of the lines, and investment in those areas.
The reinstatement would probably cost about £360 million. Let me talk about that number. The Government think that £360 million for a deprived area would probably not be money well spent. Not only would it be an investment in people, but if the railway is there for 100 years it comes to £360,000 a year. That would be the capital cost, instead of millions for titivating town centres. I might compare that with my local clinical commissioning group, which spends almost £1 billion in the east Lancashire area annually. We must get some perspective. There is serious ill health and deprivation in the area, but we are reluctant to invest in people and we try to cut margins on the railway. Economically that does not stand up. The Government’s policy of investing in other things and giving away grant money seems to me to be a case of looking in the wrong direction. We should be investing where it matters.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
There are a lot of MPs here to support the proposition that the hon. Gentleman is putting forward, and I am glad to add my support. Does he agree that the secret to investment in any area is connectivity, which he has referred to, and that the key to that is a functioning railway line? Does he further agree that the proposed reopening of this line would enable not only better commuting, but more investment potential for these two towns and indeed the whole area, which should be the primary reason for the Government to pursue this proposal?
Graham P. Jones
The hon. Gentleman is quite right; all these little bits of links, as I mentioned in my response to my hon. Friend the Member for St Helens North (Conor McGinn), add value to other sub-regions; they are not just an advantage or an addition for that particular sub-region. These things really matter, and with this particular line we are talking about potentially connecting the port of Hull with the port of Liverpool for manufacturing and the shipment of goods, as well as passenger services. That has a broad connectivity that goes beyond east Lancashire, which is why there is support all the way from Merseyside to Hull for the reinstatement of this line.
Yet we are sitting here with 12 miles missing in the middle, between Skipton and Colne. I want to see that line upgraded to a twin-track railway for freight—I think it is gauge 12, although I will stand corrected if it is not—and built to modern standards. We need to put back that line, which was cut in 1970, because it will connect two big industrial heartlands and provide opportunity for both passengers and freight. The decision to cut the line back in 1970 was a terrible one, which has mirrored the deprivation indices for east Lancashire, but since then we have seen an increase in passenger numbers on Britain’s railways. In fact, they have doubled.
That is certainly what would happen here. Think of the Borders Railway: what a success it has been. The Government said it would not be a success and ScotRail said it would, and who was right? It was not the people in Westminster or the people in the Department for Transport; they were wrong. The people who were right were the people north of the border. That line has been a huge success, and there should be a lesson there to us all about listening to mandarins in Whitehall instead of investing in and listening to local people.
Most of the route between Skipton and Colne is flat and level, and can be walked in a few hours. Some bridges need to be rebuilt, and in a couple of places—particularly at Earby—major road works are needed. However, in the words of the DFT’s 2018 report presented to the Transport Minister last December, there are “no showstoppers” preventing us from putting those12 miles back.
As I said previously, the Skipton to Colne link has widespread support throughout the local community. It is important to say that it is also backed regionally and by businesses, and regularly features in the media. I think it is on the list of 13 schemes that the Government are considering for rail line reinstatement. The campaign has more than 500 individual paid-up members and 50 businesses are signed up, as well as other organisations. Key businesses include Peel Ports, Drax—which is having problems getting to the power plant there—and Skipton Building Society, among many.
The project also has the support of all the MPs in the area. I note that the hon. Member for Pendle (Andrew Stephenson) is here; he is a campaigner for the rail link and I pay credit to his campaigning, as I do to that of others—I do not think there is anybody, either candidate or MP, who is against the reinstatement. We have even had co-operation from Yorkshire, and that is remarkable. We just need some signs saying, “Welcome to Lancashire” when we reinstate the line.
Julie Cooper
On the point about the widespread support for this project, does my hon. Friend agree that it is hugely disappointing that the former Secretary of State for Transport, the right hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling), visited and made some very positive comments, which raised hopes in the area, only to have them dashed recently?
Graham P. Jones
My hon. Friend makes a good point. We have had highs and lows on this issue that we should not have had. There has been a bit of dither and it has gone on for too long; today’s debate is about asking the Minister to make a firm commitment as we are going into a general election.
Returning to look at the service more widely, if passenger services were to go on the new Skipton to Colne railway line, they would be building on an existing success story. The Airedale line, which runs from Leeds and Bradford via Shipley and Keighley to Skipton, was modernised in the 1990s. Since then it has seen strong growth, and the Airedale line train services are now very popular. Last year alone, over 1.2 million passengers used Skipton station. The Airedale line is often described by experts as the flagship railway line of the north, and we need just 12 miles to connect to that.
It seems very straightforward that this line should go in and connect to such a successful railway line, just 12 miles away. What it would bring to the towns of Pendle, Burnley, my own Accrington and the Hyndburn constituency, with a population in excess of a quarter of a million, would be a remarkable transformation. We would be on a new network with new opportunities. That is not an insignificant population; it is a significant population in the immediate catchment area alone. I do not include Blackburn, Ribble Valley or Preston, which are also on the line—in fact, the line goes right through to Blackpool—and would also benefit, as would areas further afield, as my hon. Friend the Member for St Helens North has said of St Helens.
The project will help not only east Lancashire, but the north-west and the north, so we must look at the wider advantages. There is a sticking-point at Earby, I admit, but as the DFT report says, I do not think this is a deal-breaker. A solution must be found that will minimise the impact on local residents, and I am mindful of that, but it is not something that cannot be overcome by engineers.
I will return briefly to mention that freight and manufacturing are a crucial issue. This is a manufacturing area; I often hear the hon. Member for Pendle say that east Lancashire is a manufacturing hub, but if it is a manufacturing hub, why do we not have a freight rail link in? Why are we not investing in this line and managing to ship goods around the world via the two ports east and west of east Lancashire? I am asking the question. Having the heavy rail Minister here, as I pointed out earlier, is important, because we must not do what is being suggested and put in light rail passenger transport. We must invest for the future, for business, for manufacturing and for prosperity—not just to transport passengers around.
I will touch on an important point at this stage. Network Rail has said to me in reply that it does not have a freight rail terminal anywhere near east Lancashire. There is an ideal site at Huncoat power station in my Hyndburn constituency, a brownfield site that is being redeveloped. I ask the Minister to comment on this: while I know these are matters for the private sector, if those 12 miles go in for heavy goods and the Government actively invest in this rail line, it is obvious that they should actively pursue a rail freight terminal for east Lancashire.
We have the road network, which at certain times is not full to capacity—a long way short of capacity, particularly in the evenings. It would serve the manufacturing base of east Lancashire if this line were put back in to the ports and beyond and we had that rail freight terminal. That is a crucial issue. If we are going to put the investment in, let us put in the other corresponding investments too.
If the project was given the go-ahead in early 2020, we could expect a new passenger service to be running as early as 2025-26. This is not a massive scheme for the DFT. It is something that we, as a nation and as a region, should be pursuing, and we should be pursuing it actively, not hesitating or holding back. This conversation has gone on for too long.
As I come to the end of my comments, I note that the proposal is backed by Transport for the North, which has provided evidence that the scheme should go ahead. It has published its report on the strategic transport plan for the next 30 years, the TfN STP, which has conclusively shown that there will be a massive and transformational boost to the deprived economy of east Lancashire, should this reinstatement go ahead. That will be achieved by bringing all of east Lancashire within one hour of central Leeds and Bradford, and improving connectivity with elsewhere. The scheme has TfN’s full support, which is worth saying, and it is part of the section of TfN’s investment programme titled: “Specific Interventions before 2027—Proposed Early Phases of Northern Powerhouse Rail and Additional TfN Priorities”. TfN is an active stakeholder, along with the Department for Transport and Network Rail, trying to help and input into the development of the scheme.
I say this with a general election possibly around the corner: we in the Labour party have committed to reinstating this link for heavy rail without hesitation. Furthermore, we have committed to electrifying this line, which is needed because the Airedale lane is electrified. I am also pretty certain that the Labour party will support private sector investment in a freight rail terminal in my constituency.
We need to move quickly, for Britain, the north and this region, but we also need to look beyond: when the east Lancs line is done, we need to start looking at the Accrington to Stubbins connection. We need to put back what was taken away and make these once-proud towns proud again. Let us put in the investment that they deserve. When the cotton industry was thriving, 25% of our economy’s foreign currency exports were derived from it and off the backs of those workers. They deserve better today, and that investment should be put in. We in the Labour party are committed to doing so as a matter of course.
Finally, I am interested to hear the Minister’s thoughts on those deprived communities and how he can stop their fall down the deprivation ladder. My hon. Friend the Member for Burnley (Julie Cooper) is here. Burnley is the eighth most deprived town in the country, Blackburn is ninth and my constituency of Hyndburn is 16th. The hon. Member for Pendle is here, and he can perhaps say where Pendle is on the ladder; I think it is about 20th or 22nd. Those four constituencies, which would benefit from the proposed line, are among the poorest.
This is about investing in people. When we use metrics in considering whether to put those 12 miles of track back in, we should look at life expectancy, which is 10 years lower there than everywhere else, and we should look at the £1 billion cost to the CCG of not investing in people and leaving deprived communities to fail. Given that the railway will last for 100 years, we should not look at the small amount of £360 million and say that there is no economic return, and effectively—as happened on Merseyside—throw these people under a bus. I am interested to hear the Minister’s reply.
Andrew Jones
There is absolutely no doubt that transport is a significant contributor to the carbon in our atmosphere, which is why the Government are taking action. I agree with the hon. Lady’s basic principle, but to say that the Government are not doing anything would be wrong, because there has been record investment in public transport and in our rail network, with the control period 6 budget of £48 billion being the biggest in British history. But yes, the environmental impact of improving rail connections for the people whom this line would serve would be a real enhancement and is one reason why this is a good project.
The economic case was made by the hon. Member for Hyndburn (Graham P. Jones), and it has been made consistently by the two Members at each end of the proposed line, neither of whom can speak because they are Ministers—one of them is here. The Minister for Africa, my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle (Andrew Stephenson), is a long-standing champion of the scheme, for all the reasons we have explored in the debate. Improving his area is his top priority. At the other end of the line, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, my right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Julian Smith), is also unable to speak, but I know that he is in support. However, it is not only the areas at both ends that the line would serve; transport connections would improve for communities much more widely. That would certainly be true of Burnley and the Aire valley, which would be clear beneficiaries, as would the Hyndburn area.
The trans-Pennine line is critical for the north of England’s economy, but it is congested. The Government are responding with a £2.9 billion trans-Pennine rail upgrade, but to really transform the northern economies we need to add capacity in lots of different ways. The trans-Pennine rail upgrade, Northern Powerhouse Rail and the Skipton to Colne line all have a role to play, which is why I am pleased that the Government are taking this project forward through its development phase.
As a former Transport Minister, I have met campaigners and businesses who have been strong in their support for the project. We should pay tribute to their tenacity in keeping going, because it is not always easy to get transport projects off the starting blocks in the United Kingdom, and tenacity is a key ingredient in doing so. I met haulage businesses and people seeking to move significant amounts of freight from one part of the country to another, as well as people who simply recognise that some parts of the north have more vacancies and some parts have people who need work, and that transport is required to connect the two.
I am afraid that I must gently challenge the hon. Member for Hyndburn, who said that the Government are not seeking to invest in the north. If we look at the data published by the Infrastructure and Projects Authority and covering the three-year period that we are right in the middle of, we see that the data from the national infrastructure and construction pipeline shows that the northern region has higher per capita transport spending than the midlands or the south—it is £248 per person for the north and £236 per person for the midlands and the south.
We can combine that with the fact that the biggest project currently underway on the railways other than HS2 is the transport and rail upgrade, and we can look at the fact that rolling stock in the north is being renewed for the first time in a generation. In only a few weeks’ time, the Minister will be able to say something that no Rail Minister has been able to say for a generation, which is that trains in the north are of a higher calibre than they have probably ever been, and they will be better than in any other part of our country.
Graham P. Jones
The hon. Gentleman offers a different perspective from that of the Institute for Public Policy Research, which says that there has been a lack of investment in the north. I simply say to him that the public will ask this about the investment that is supposed to be going into the north, “East Lancashire is very deprived; whereabouts in east Lancashire will it go? I am an east Lancashire resident—show me the money.”
Andrew Jones
I have obviously seen the IPPR reports and the claims made, which frankly I think are not correct. The methodology of its reports is flawed in lots of different ways. That is why it is important to go back to the authoritative figures produced by the Infrastructure and Projects Authority, which give us the data.
I think that we need more investment in transport right across the country, because I am a great believer in transport’s ability to drive economic growth, create opportunity and improve the environment. We should not spend time using methodology that is deeply flawed, frankly, simply to make a political point; we should look at the authoritative data, and I have already highlighted the numbers.
I will go back to my point about rolling stock, because this is a great opportunity for the north. We have not had decent rolling stock for a generation. The Pacer trains may have been a good idea at the time, when those who were managing our railways were taking cost out, because they were in precipitate decline. Those trains may have been the right answer then, but they are not the right answer now. That is why it is such a good thing that they are going. Many have already gone—a number went last week. We will see that continue to happen in the weeks ahead. This is not just on Northern; we are seeing new rolling stock fleets across trans-Pennine as well, and the new Azumas are entering service on the east coast main line. The transition from being utterly inadequate to having top-quality new rolling stock in the north is fantastic, and we should celebrate it.
Graham P. Jones
As I understand it—I will stand corrected if the hon. Gentleman can tell me otherwise—the new rolling stock will not be on the section from Burnley to Colne to Pendle; that section will have revamped old stock. Can he update us on that point?
Andrew Jones
Some of the rolling stock that will be entering service across the north is indeed refurbished rolling stock. The rolling stock entering service on the Leeds-Harrogate-York line is cascaded stock that has been refurbished to a condition that is as good as new, and it is absolutely fantastic. The response from the travelling public of Harrogate has been very positive, because it is a step change from the Pacers, which have served my community for a very long time.
I do not accept the basic position of Opposition Members that the Government have failed to invest in the north and are failing to modernise, because that simply is not true. There is not just the new rolling stock and the trans-Pennine upgrade; we also have the northern hub, which is connecting Piccadilly and Victoria in Manchester. The Todmorden curve opened in 2015, following a £10 million investment, and reconnected Burnley to Manchester—I think that was the first time that service had ever been operated. Those are good examples of investment in east Lancashire that is transforming the local economies, because transport investment is a driver of economic growth. That is why the current Government have been so strong in their consistent delivery of transport investment.
May I close by urging the Rail Minister to press on with his good work as he invests, modernises the railway and recognises the benefits that it brings to communities right across the UK? This is one project that has to be considered and taken forward, for all the positive reasons that we have discussed in this debate so far, and which has been championed by my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle and others right across the area. As the hon. Member for Hyndburn said, it has support right across the political spectrum, at local and national level. For those reasons, I urge the Minister to press on.
Julie Cooper
The Todmorden curve railway link would never have been made had it not been for the Labour-led Burnley Council.
Graham P. Jones
I thank you, Mr Howarth, for chairing this debate. I also thank the hon. Members who have contributed to it, including my hon. Friend the Member for St Helens North (Conor McGinn), who probably agrees that rail passengers in his constituency would be liberated by the reinstatement of this rail link, and my hon. Friend the Member for Burnley (Julie Cooper). She rightly pointed out that Burnley Borough Council, along with other local councils including Labour councils, led on the Todmorden curve initiative without much input from Lancashire County Council, which was very disappointing for a transport authority. We do not congratulate Burnley Council enough.
I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (John Grogan) and the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones), the former heavy rail Minister, who has been backing this project for quite a long time. He probably feels that he has been backing it for so long that it must happen one day. I suggest that if he votes Labour at the next election, that day might come sooner, rather than later or never.
The Minister touched on the issue of the M65, which I did not bring up. To summarise briefly, that is another key pipeline project that must go ahead in conjunction with the rail link. I raised that issue quite a while ago, alongside my hon. Friend the Member for Burnley, and have been a vociferous campaigner at the vanguard of the campaign to ensure that we get that connection through to the north-east, to Leeds and to the M1.
The Minister said that the Government were investing heavily in the north. I gently point out that if he is serious about investing in the north, he should back the budget for Transport for the North and the Northern Powerhouse Rail project, which comes in at £39 billion; I hope that commitment is not going to recede. The Government seem undecided about how much they will spend on Northern Powerhouse Rail, with some figures as low as £12 billion, rather than the £39 billion that is required. I also hope that the Government will commit to the northern infrastructure pipeline, a £7 billion investment to get some of the projects up and running quickly. They have not done so yet, so the idea that they have made some commitment to investment in the north that is equivalent to what is invested in the south does not bear scrutiny.
The Minister talked about cost, affordability and value for money. We are back to those words again; we are telling deprived communities, “You are not worth it. You are not getting anything. Hard luck.” This is a £360 million project; over 100 years, that is £360,000 a year. East Lancashire clinical commissioning group spends £1 billion a year, and that figure does not include West Yorkshire’s clinical commissioning groups, which probably spend more. Building this rail line will cost 0.3% of the health budget, so let us get some perspective. When we talk about levels of deprivation, building this line is an easy answer. In the context of a health budget, this rail infrastructure investment is a minuscule amount, particularly if we look at the whole corridor. It probably amounts to less than 0.1% of the health budget for that corridor, where deprivation levels are some of the most severe in the country. I do not understand the Government’s thinking in denying this investment at this stage; we should press on and do it. As my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley said, there is no better time than the 175th anniversary of the opening of the original line. Let us get the shovels in the ground.
The Minister mentioned value for money. Is it not about time that we get local contractors and local people in? This is a deprived area. Why are we not bringing in local contractors to do some of this basic work, such as the trackbed work, which does not require engineering?
Graham P. Jones
It does not matter. That does not excuse us from bringing in local contractors to do some of the most basic work, lowering the costs. We do not always have to bring in experienced contractors from the south on high-value contracts; that does not serve the cost analysis very well. I do not think that affordability, cost and value for money should be the drivers of this particular scheme.
My hon. Friend the Member for Keighley was right to say that Christmas could have come early for us all if the Minister had committed to this rail line, but he has not. My hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell), who gave a very good speech, rightly suggested that it is about time that we brought the railways into public ownership so that we can make these decisions, instead of their being made by consultants and outside bodies. Local, democratically elected people should decide what is best for their local communities, not some of the experts who have failed east Lancashire.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the proposed reinstatement of the Colne to Skipton railway link.
Oral Answers to Questions
Graham P Jones Excerpts(6 years, 1 month ago)
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Graham P. Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Jesse Norman)
As the hon. Gentleman will know, the Government’s mission is for all new cars and vans to be effectively zero emission by 2040. The Road to Zero strategy, which we published in July, sets out a wide range of actions that have been taken to achieve that goal, as well as steps to drive down emissions from conventional vehicles in the meantime. Those measures involve about £1.5 billion of investment.
Graham P. Jones
The recent National Infrastructure Commission report identified Accrington as the most congested town in the country. Has the Minister read that report, and does he recognise that fact? Will he meet my local authority to try to find a resolution, and what outcome to that problem would he like to see?
Jesse Norman
Yes I have—not only have I read the report, but I have talked to Sir John Armitt, head of the National Infrastructure Commission, about the implications of the work it is doing. I would be delighted to meet the hon. Gentleman. This is the first I have heard about the issue from him, but if he wants to come and bring with him representatives from his local authority, he is welcome to have that conversation.
Oral Answers to Questions
Graham P Jones Excerpts(6 years, 4 months ago)
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Chris Grayling
I expect that we will complete plans for airspace modernisation over the coming months. There will be a rolling programme in the early 2020s, and I expect details of that plan to be made clear, probably in 2019.
Graham P. Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Jesse Norman)
Highways England has gathered evidence about the performance of the strategic road network, and future pressures on it, to inform the decisions we have taken as part of the second road investment strategy. This process of evidence gathering and public consultation has taken into consideration the idea of extending the M65.
Graham P. Jones
The Secretary of State has invested in the idea of a rail link between Liverpool and Hull, connecting the east and west through the central low Pennines. Do the Government accept that a road link would be complementary? It would go through deprived communities and provide a huge economic uplift. Do the Government recognise that this is the great northern powerhouse project?
Jesse Norman
As the hon. Gentleman will be aware, we are already investing £1.5 billion in road systems in the north-west. Of course the M65 is, in a way, a legendary road because it ends in a carpark, and no one thinks that is a satisfactory arrangement. I would welcome a further conversation with him about this, but the situation is far from straightforward.
Oral Answers to Questions
Graham P Jones Excerpts(6 years, 6 months ago)
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Chris Grayling
I have now got back the responses to the consultation, and I am carefully considering my response to them. I give my hon. Friend an assurance that I have a fairly clear message from the people who responded, and I will take that view very carefully into account in how I take this forward.
Graham P. Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)
When will the Government stand up for small towns in the shires of this country? While the cities get new trains and powers over bus services, the small towns in the heartlands, such as Lancashire, get nothing. This Government do not seem to care about small towns.
Chris Grayling
It is nice to finish with a degree of hokum from the Opposition. Lancashire has benefited, for example, from the Heysham relief road—connecting two smaller centres in a way that is absolutely vital if we are to unlock parts of the economy—and, starting later this year, all the small towns in Lancashire are getting new trains. Once we have bedded in the timetable and overcome these infuriating problems, the Northern Rail franchise will deliver more services in Lancashire—and, indeed, in Copeland, where my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Trudy Harrison), who has now gone, had the pleasure last weekend of travelling on the west Cumbria line’s first Sunday service in decades.
East Coast Main Line
Graham P Jones Excerpts(6 years, 6 months ago)
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Graham P. Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)
Is the Secretary of State attributing all the problems on the east coast main line over the last few years to the franchise holders and none of them to his Department and him?
Chris Grayling
I attribute the problems on that line to two things: first, an unrealistic bid that has failed; and secondly, old rolling stock that is being replaced and an infrastructure that needs an upgrade and is going to get it. That is what has caused the operational problems—notwithstanding that, passenger satisfaction on that railway line is 92%,which I think is pretty good.
Oral Answers to Questions
Graham P Jones Excerpts(6 years, 7 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Joseph Johnson)
The hon. Gentleman will be aware that, by the end of 2018, almost all passengers will have the choice of a smart ticket, making buying a ticket easier and giving passengers much greater choice.
Graham P. Jones
What plans does the Minister have to ensure that split ticketing does not erode trust in the rail fare system? How can he ensure that ticket machines on the East Lancs line provide the cheapest option to passengers when there are not necessarily offices to buy tickets from?
Joseph Johnson
Simplification of ticketing and ease of understanding for passengers is extremely important, as is ensuring that passengers have access to the fares that are right for them. It is important that train operating companies look carefully at their ticketing arrangements to ensure that that is the case.
Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill (Sixth sitting)
Graham P Jones ExcerptsTuesday 14th November 2017
(7 years ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Automated and Electric Vehicles Act 2018 View all Automated and Electric Vehicles Act 2018 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 14 November 2017 - (14 Nov 2017)
Mr Hayes
Before I give way, I will quote Ruskin. I know that the hon. Gentleman will want to be informed by that before he contributes. Ruskin said:
“Quality is never an accident. It is always the result of intelligent effort.”
The effort required is of a scale and of the kind that my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset mentions. I shall be able to offer extra, exciting news in a few moments.
Graham P. Jones
I am more likely to quote Rousseau than Ruskin. To take the point made by the right hon. Member for West Dorset and talk about it practically, in my constituency 50%-plus of properties are terraced and the lamp standards are set back, not kerbside. That causes a difficulty, because even if we were to fit charging points, we would still have trailing wires. We therefore have all sorts of issues about how we interconnect a property with the kerbside when the lamp standard is set back towards the property, not the road.
By 2040, of course, all vehicles will have to be electric vehicles. The houses will still be there—we are not going to demolish or reconstruct them—so there will have to be a process of adaptation between now and then. The right hon. Member for West Dorset was talking about 10 million charging points and 20 million cars, and I do not think he is too wrong. Who knows? With smaller vehicles, there may be more vehicles than that. How does the Minister envisage resolving that?
One thing the Minister could do, though it would not bridge the problem of open wiring and cabling from a property to the kerbside, is on parking bays. One of the problems in terraced areas will be the competition for parking outside. If a person has a charging point on their property, with the Government having alleviated the problem of cabling across the kerbside, they still have the problem of accessibility when they come home. The Government need to consider how the charge is transferred from the property to the roadside and how to prioritise, because someone who has just bought an electric vehicle will want to be able to park outside their house to connect the cable up at the shortest point. Those are issues the Government need to consider. When we look at the scale mentioned by the right hon. Member for West Dorset and where the volume of terraced properties is like mine at 50%-plus, we see there is a major challenge for the Government.
Mr Hayes
Yes, and one might say, paradoxically, that the challenge is both urban and rural. In many urban areas, people may not have convenient roadside parking, while in many rural areas people may live remote from main arterial routes and therefore major retailers. The Bill mentions major retailers, and I want to deal with that in greater detail. The point was made by the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun in considering the previous incarnation of the Bill—the first Bill that dealt with these matters, which never came to fruition because of the general election—that rural areas in the north of England and Scotland and elsewhere could be disadvantaged if charging points are focused on main routes and urban places. I want to deal with that in my remarks and the subsequent actions I take.
The hon. Member for Hyndburn is right that there is a technical challenge in making sure that the infrastructure is in place to deliver the charging points. There is also the planning challenge. My right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset describes the efforts of Wandsworth and Kensington and Chelsea as just the beginning. Those were not his words, but I want to ensure that no one felt he was being critical of those brave local authorities.
Yesterday, I met the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government and discussed this with him. In two respects, planning is critical. It is very important that we ensure that, first, electric car charging points are part of any application for new housing—an implicit part of new developments—and secondly, in respect of local authorities, we achieve greater consistency in the provision of charging points for the very reason that my right hon. Friend gave. The numbers involved require all local authorities to consider them and act on those considerations, or we simply will not get enough charging points—or, just as seriously, we may get them clustered in certain places and absent in others. That will not build the confidence we require to encourage the purchase and use of electric vehicles.
Mr Hayes
Let me be crystal clear: I have no intention of being behind the curve. I am not satisfied to be on the curve, we are going to be ahead of the curve. That is why we must think about housing developments and local authorities but, more than that, about workplaces. I want the Committee to know that the Government have already put into place grant funding to encourage workplaces to put charge points in place, so that people who do not have easy access to a charge point on the street and have not charged at home can charge at their place of work.
I want every local authority in the country to know that there is grant funding available for on-street charge points and I encourage them all to apply. We are not simply speaking of regulations or guidance that encourages or obliges them to consider these matters. We are prepared to help to fund this roll-out.
Workplaces, homes, local authorities, on-street, working across Government—this will not simply put us ahead of the curve, it will make us a leader in this field. I personally am not a laggard, and neither are the Government.
Graham P. Jones
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. He raises a good point: it is desirable to have charging points in workplaces, and I hope the Government will follow through on the Minister’s advice. People do not want charge up at home. There is obviously an issue there: the energy is coming from their own power point and, even if they have solar panels, they will be at work during the day when the sun shines and their vehicle is more likely to be at work. So the workplace is a great place for people to charge electric vehicles. That is desirable in the UK because if we are charging during the day—most people work during daylight hours—it will be from a renewable energy source.
Let me will just return to the Minister’s point about local authorities. My local authority is about to implement a planning policy making charging points automatic in every new build. They are progressive, but they are still left with this legacy. I put this to the Minister today, in my constituency of Haslingden and Hyndburn—where 50% of homes are terraced houses and the lampposts are set back—what incentive do people have to buy an electric vehicle when they cannot charge it at their property? Either they cannot get an access space, or they would have to run a cable. There is the technical problem of running a cable from the property to the car. What is the Minister’s response today, to get the electric vehicle market growing, and to get it growing in constituencies like mine?
Mr Hayes
It is straightforward: greater interoperability, greater shared and common access, consistency about payment method, and much greater availability—in homes, on streets and in workplaces. We simply have to have a step change in volume, but a fundamental change too in the ease of use of charge points.
It is true that most people who currently have an electric vehicle, for most the time, charge at home, and typically they charge overnight. That point was made earlier in the debate. But unless people have the confidence that they can charge straightforwardly elsewhere—with a system they understand and a payment method that is easy to use—they will not have the confidence to purchase or drive an electric vehicle. We see this as absolutely critical to our bigger ambitions for low emission vehicles, which is why we introduced the Bill. The whole purpose of the Bill is to address one of the principal reasons people might cite for not switching to an electric vehicle.
Mr Hayes
This part of the Bill facilitates a regulatory environment that would allow us to address a range of challenges. The Bill anticipates regulations, though I do not yet know whether this needs to be done by regulation or whether it can be done by other means. I wanted to highlight that I share the hon. Gentleman’s concern. I know that the Committee felt that there is, not a risk or a likelihood, but a possibility that we might end up concentrating charge points, even though they are interoperable and easily accessible and wonderfully recognisable and beautiful, and that rural areas would consequently be at a disadvantage. I will look at the matter closely and see whether we need regulation, or whether we can use other means.
I must say a word about amendment 3, as it is the subject of the debate. The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East suggests that we require the Secretary of State to consult charge point operators and vehicle manufacturers before regulating. I can absolutely assure him that we will be consulting charge point operators and vehicle manufacturers before we make regulations. He has my certain assurance that that consultation will take place. I do not feel that the amendment is necessary, because it is implicit in the way in which the Government will go about their work. Ruskin said:
“Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless; peacocks and lilies for instance.”
That does not mean that useful things must be ugly. It is perhaps true that the most beautiful things are useless, but let us make useful things as beautiful as they can possibly be.
Graham P. Jones
Presumably, Sir Edward, with your permission, we are also speaking to clause stand part?
The Chair
I think we have had a very discursive and wide-ranging debate. If the hon. Gentleman wants to add anything, he should speak now.
Graham P. Jones
The clause states that the Secretary of State will make regulations on these matters. What is the timeframe for this and what is the process? Who will be involved in some of these decisions and in formulating some of the ideas? When in the near future will some of these regulations be laid? As I said earlier, 50% of the issues for my constituents are simple technical matters: terraced property, road and the kerb that sits in the middle. When will the Secretary of State bring forward the regulations in clause 9 and who will be involved in that?
Mr Hayes
Let me deal with that first. I wholly agree that the regulatory powers we have taken are designed to produce a common payment method. That is very important. As I offered a moment ago, we will engage with the industry to work to that end, but we could use these powers to oblige that. It is intolerable that people might turn up thinking they could charge their vehicle, find that the charge point was compatible because of the steps we have taken, and then find that they had to have pre-booked, prepaid or have a special card to do pay. It is probably right that we go for a pay-as-you-go method, but I do not want to be definitive about that. Let us have those discussions to achieve the end my hon. Friend suggests.
On the other matter, will the hon. Member for Hyndburn remind me what he said? I have now waxed so lyrical that I cannot remember.
Graham P. Jones
It was about the process and the involvement of the regulations that the clause says the Secretary of State will introduce. When are we likely to see them? Fifty per cent of my constituents have a technical problem that could be resolved quite soon. Perhaps the Minister’s office and the regulations might resolve that for them.
Mr Hayes
I know that when I display my scepticism about the free market, it excites my Opposition friends whose views on such things are closely aligned with mine. I have to say, however, that the market is not entirely undesirable. We hope that through co-operation and collaboration, consultation and discussion, we can bring about a happy series of outcomes. We want to work with manufacturers and industry to ensure that we get to the destination that we all seek, but the regulations ensure that if we do not get there, we take the powers. My view is simple: we will introduce regulations when it is necessary to do so. We will not regulate unless we have to. As my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset said, there seem to be persuasive arguments that if we do not establish the ability and, in some instances, the actuality to do so, the market will not necessarily deliver all these outcomes, but that is a matter to gauge when we see how things develop. The important thing is that the Committee can be proud of putting in place the means by which Government can do just that.
Graham P. Jones
The Minister talks about Ruskin, and a quote from Rousseau comes to mind:
“What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness?”
That probably sums up the Minister’s efforts in Committee, and I greatly appreciate the tone and manner in which he always conducts Bill Committees in which he leads for the Government.
I want to take up the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham, who said, “Why just fuel stations?” It seems a good question. If the Minister and the Government can regulate for the imposition of charging points at fuel stations, why not do so for other places? My hon. Friend talked about workplaces, which seem an ideal location, for many reasons. They may be able to capture renewable energy, for example—and people spend a lot of time at workplaces. Why not retailers? If we are going to have fast charging, why not in a big car park, with plenty of space? Sometimes fuel stations are a bit more limited in the space that they afford the motorist. In fact, they are very limited in some cases, particularly in metropolitan areas. Why not public spaces? Why not encourage a whole new enterprise culture whereby people provide, in open spaces, charging points? Why is it just fuel stations?
I am concerned that this seems like a restrictive practice. We are accelerating an advantage for fuel stations, rather than thinking about the benefit to the nation of rolling out as many charging points as possible, as the right hon. Member for West Dorset has said numerous times this afternoon.
There is another disadvantage that ought to be mentioned in restricting the acceleration of charging points. For those homeowners, middle or upper class, who have off-street car parking, a drive and a garage, and are probably charging off the solar panels on the roof or can even afford to charge out of the mains grid at home, that is fine. However, restricting access will result in poor people in my constituency paying a price. If those in a detached or semi-detached house with off-street car parking are charging a vehicle using renewable energies or using the grid, then they will be doing so at a cheaper and more affordable price. Over 50% of my constituents live in terraced properties, and there is no way that they can access a domestic charging point. It is not there. They would have to use a commercial charging point, and there is a cost to that. We are imposing a cost on the poorest people: the cost of moving the vehicle to the location wherever that is, the cost of leaving the vehicle there, and then the cost of paying for that service. The middle-class or wealthy person in my constituency with a drive and off-street car parking can, however, enjoy all the advantages of a home consumer.
We are making regulations for only a few places, but I urge the Minister to see that there are far-reaching consequences to the policy. My hon. Friend the Member for Eltham made this point: we ought to be rolling out charging points everywhere. We should be mindful, as I have said previously, that we are not doing enough for some of our poorest constituents in some of the properties least able to be adapted. Those people are going to end up paying higher premiums should they wish or be able to acquire an electric vehicle. This restricted availability is wrong. It does not allow for social mobility and it denies some of the poorest people access to the market. I would ask the Minister to reconsider and—when he wants to encourage or even mandate retailers or anyone in society that can afford and offer a charging point—to think positively about how many charging points we can achieve over the period of time, how many opportunities there are and why we are restricting it to just a single section of the market.
The cynical person might say that this is the petrol retailers, that as the market changes from fossil fuels to electricity we have to give them some kind of commercial advantage. Perhaps it is in the Government’s mind to say, “Let’s give them a heads-up and a lead on this issue.” I would say that it is not right, that electric charging points should be made available to all and that we should be thinking about the nation and the national interest, not a limited commercial interest that seems to be in clause 10. I would urge the Government to rethink this clause.
Sir Oliver Letwin
There are two specific points that I would like to raise in relation to clause 10, but before I do so I would like to explain why they arise.
As I understand it, about 90% of charging for current electric vehicle use goes on at home, largely overnight at low voltage. In trying to achieve the Minister’s aim—which is the Government’s aim and the cross-party aim of the House of Commons as a whole—of achieving a step change in which we move from 100,000 electric vehicles to tens of millions of them, one of the things that needs to be addressed is what we were discussing a moment ago: the issue of overnight, on-street parking. However, there is a paradox.
Even if there were 10 million on-street parking charging points working beautifully, unfortunately, there would not be very many electric cars using them because there is range anxiety. That is another limiting factor in the expansion of electric car take-up. That range anxiety may in due course be resolved by the advance of battery technology, the introduction of solid state batteries and so on—I very much hope that it will be. The Minister, I and the Committee as a whole recognise that we cannot predict the speed at which battery technology will advance to the point at which relatively cheap and light batteries can carry someone for 400 or 500 miles on a reliable basis. The overwhelming majority of journeys per day are 20 miles and under in the country and do not actually cause any range problems.
I am sure that other Committee members feel, as I do, inhibitions about purchasing a vehicle that will run out of charge if I am trying to make the journey from London to my constituency, then travel around my constituency, if I cannot find a point at which to charge it. Unlike the position on the overnight charging, range anxiety can be cured—unless we adopt the Israeli model, which I am not recommending—only by very high voltage, fast charging at points on the journey that are not too far from the start and are interspersed at relatively short distances. We could debate whether that distance is 50 miles or 100 miles, but if we fixed in our mind the importance of making sure that nobody who started in London and was trying to get to any point in the country would find that it was more than 50 miles before the next fast charging point was actually available—I do not mean was sitting there and being occupied by some other car, but was actually usable at the time they wanted it and could charge their car in five or 10 minutes, at a reasonable price, while we went to buy the paper, went to the loo and did the other things we do at service stations on motorways—range anxiety would be at an end in the UK. Is that achievable, and does clause 10 allow the Government to ensure that it will quickly be achievable? Those are the questions that we need to address.
The answer to the first question—is it achievable?—is yes, it is abundantly achievable. The National Grid is conducting a trial with UK Power Networks to show the cost of stringing lines from the nodes on the high-voltage network to service stations, which will establish the cost of a core network of 50-mile spaced service stations, on the motorway network in the first place and, quickly thereafter, on those parts of the trunk road network that are necessary to cover in relation to, say, Cornwall or Scotland.
I stress that it is all about Highways England, the National Grid company and a few of the DNOs from time to time. Nobody else needs to play a part. If they were all working together to install the relevant infrastructure quickly, it is perfectly doable and not terribly expensive. I have spent time talking to the National Grid company about the likely cost of this, and even if we take quite a high estimate, the effect on bills for customers buying electricity would be in the order of 0.1p per kilowatt hour. It is very small beer. I cannot overemphasise the importance of curing range anxiety early—if we do, we will get scale, and if we get scale the price of electric vehicles will drop, then we will get demand. We would get a virtuous circle. The speed with which we do that will very much influence the future industrial history of this country, because if we do it quickly enough, so that we get scale in electric vehicles before other European countries do, we will be ahead of the market and all sorts of investment decisions will flow to the UK. If we are slightly behind them—and I welcome what the Minister said about being ahead of the curve—it will have the opposite effect. They will be built in Germany and later exported to the UK. That must be our aim: to establish a national network of fast charging points, supported by very high-voltage cables, quickly installed at distances along our motorways and trunk roads, which enable people to make a journey from any point to any point in the UK without anxiety about range, even if their vehicle only has 75 miles of battery range.
Two items are missing from clause 10 that would enable the Government to achieve that. First, there is no power to compel the National Grid company to install such links. It goes back essentially to the same kind of structural point that I was making about DNOs in relation to on-street charging, although the item here is quite different: we are talking about a big, heavy-duty, high-voltage cable. However, the principle is the same. At the moment there is no knowing whether Ofgem would allow NGC to charge to its regulatory asset base such links, because there is no power in the Bill or anywhere else that allows the Minister or the Secretary of State to mandate the creation of such links. That is another item that I strongly hope the Minister will consult his friends at BEIS about and, in due course, come forward in the other place with appropriate minor amendments.
Sir Greg Knight
My right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset referred earlier to petrol cars as being in the past. Let me say to him: not quite yet. Although manufacturers estimate the average life of a car to be 10 to 12 years, I have to tell him that I have a petrol-powered car that is 81 years old, and I still enjoy driving and using it.
Can the Minister confirm his intentions regarding subsection (2)(c)? Whether their car is powered by a battery or by petrol, the motorist has a right to expect the Government to intervene to protect him or her from being ripped off. Clearly, where the retailer is in a monopoly, or near-monopoly, position, such as a petrol or diesel retailer on a motorway—or indeed the provider of a charging point on a motorway—it is essential that the motorist is made aware, before he or she commits to a purchase, of the price they are going to be asked to pay. Can the Minister confirm that he will use the power in the Bill to require the electric charging point providers to display the cost to the motorist—as is now the case for petrol and diesel suppliers—so that if there is an intention to overcharge and rip off the motorist, that motorist has the opportunity to drive away and go to the next retailer?
Graham P. Jones
Does the right hon. Gentleman also agree that that information should be displayed in a manner that the customer understands?
Sir Greg Knight
Absolutely, and I would go further and say that it also has to be displayed in position where it can be read from the interior of the car, before the motorist has alighted from the vehicle and made his or her way right up to the charging point.
Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill (First sitting)
Graham P Jones Excerpts(7 years ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to recommence the discussion of the Bill under your chairmanship, Mr Bailey.
New clause 9, tabled in my name, states:
“The Secretary of State must bring forward regulations to require that automated vehicles cannot operate in automated mode on public roads unless the application software relating to the vehicle’s automated function is up to date.”
The new clause would require the Government to introduce regulations that require automated vehicles to be up to date in order for them to utilise automated functions on public roads. Under the current drafting, people would be able to drive their automated vehicles on the roads without having the latest up-to-date software, which could lead to safety risks. The new clause would ensure that the Government introduce regulations that require automated vehicles to be up to date in order for the automated function to be used. If a vehicle had a serious mechanical fault that could endanger the driver and others, we would not allow it on our roads. An automated vehicle would similarly present an increased safety risk if its operating system was not updated. Most people with a smartphone or computer are likely to have software that prevents it from being used until it is updated. I am not struck by any reason why a similar mechanism could not be included in automated vehicles. By preventing an un-updated vehicle from being used, we would achieve safer roads and cheaper insurance.
Graham P. Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making a powerful point. This applies most critically to GPS, where there may be changes to roads or whatever. The automated vehicle would need to know where it is going and whether there had been some ad hoc intervention in the road layout that meant that the GPS was inaccurate. Clearly, there would need to be an update. Does he share my view that updates should be regular and frequent, because they are part of the safety process?
Karl Turner
My hon. Friend makes a valid point when he talks about GPS systems. Without the new clause, people would be able to take un-updated vehicles on our roads, without being absolutely sure that they are safe. A primary benefit of AVs is that they reduce the likelihood of human error. However, one of the few areas in which the scope for human error remains—the responsibility for ensuring that software is updated—would not be addressed, even though it would not be difficult to do so. I cannot find any reason why it is not possible to legislate for this. The new clause addresses that obvious issue and I trust that the Government will consider it carefully.
Mr Hayes
I will in a second.
In the end, the clause aims to protect insurers from a negligent person who intentionally fails to update their vehicle. For the sake of clarity, I offer the parallel of someone who fails to ensure that a vehicle they drive now is safe—who fails to take the proper precautions or make the proper arrangements to ensure that their vehicle can be safely driven when they go out in it. So it will be with autonomous vehicles and the software that relates to them. That is the purpose of the clause, but I am not entirely convinced by the advice that I have had on it yet. The civil servants in the room—I know I am not supposed to acknowledge them—will have a shiver going down their spine. I want to reflect more on it. I think we are right and I am sure what I have said is right, but I may have more to say on it. I am happy to reflect on it and come back to my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire if there is more to be said.
Mr Hayes
With laser-like precision, my hon. Friend has focused on exactly the reason why I want to reflect on it. I thought that that was what he might say and that was what he meant when he first spoke. Although the response I offered him goes a fair way towards what he was seeking, I need to clarify that additional consideration for him. In the end, that will bring us back to the point close to the heart of all insurance considerations: how we discern liability and negligence. I want to be more precise about the second point that he raised, but I do not yet feel confident to do that. I will now give way to my old friend—the veteran of many Committees with me.
Graham P. Jones
I am grateful for the Minister’s warm words. To return to the issue of GPS mapping updates, people expect the road network to be updated on vehicles, but the scenario is completely different for manual operation compared with automated operation. I hope the Minister is aware that most of the operated maps sit in the private sector. That is not an issue if the car is manually operated because the driver always has discretion as he sees the road in front of him, but that is not the case in automated mode. We have to think about our highways workers or our police force who may be intervening in the road network.
When we talk about updates, serious consideration needs to be given to GPS maps in automated mode. Who is responsible for them? Who owns them? Who will update them? How will we ensure that we have road safety? Updates are vital, but GPS mapping is particularly vital. The Minister needs to take a good look at that and how it will be integrated into the insurance industry and into the Bill and the regulations to protect our people working on the roads.
Mr Hayes
As I say, the hon. Gentleman is a veteran of many Committees. We have rarely crossed swords, but we have certainly waved swords at each other from time to time. He makes a sound point which is precisely why we would need to address a range of those issues in further regulation. At this juncture, I do not think we can think about adding that to the Bill. I know he did not say we should, but he did say that we should think about those matters and look at how they relate to this Bill subsequently. He is absolutely right.
At the risk of opening up a new avenue for discussion—I hesitate to do that because I know we want to make reasonably rapid progress today—the hon. Gentleman might also have raised the issue of the interface between the driver and the road, and the technology on the road. As we move towards smarter roads, there will be an increasingly close relationship between the information received in the car from outside, as well as the information that is at hand within the vehicle. That is another area where there will be a connection to automated vehicles. We are already seeing the regular use of gantries across roads that provide information. The interaction between that information, the car, and the information that is available locally will, over time, become an increasing feature of driving.
This is another area in which regulation will—in exactly the way the hon. Gentleman described—need to address how that works for automated vehicles. The assurance I give him and others is that we recognise these challenges, we anticipate further work, we know that work is ongoing and it will be set out, both in the formation of international standards for a type-approval process that I mentioned, and in the regulation we will introduce that matches that development.
Sir Oliver Letwin
I am grateful again to the Minister. Yes, exactly: I had been worried about two cases, one in which the person sitting in the driving seat was the owner, and the other in which the person sitting in the driving seat was not the owner but was covered by a policy covering the driving of other cars. In both instances, I think it is clear.
The reason I am labouring these points and asking the Minister to confirm them is that I do not think that any ordinary human being reading the Bill would have the slightest clue that this is what it is trying to do. I think its architecture has been forced on it by the desire to piggyback on the Road Traffic Act; and I suspect that lawyers will understand, because they will be familiar with the Road Traffic Act and how its principles operate. Therefore, I am satisfied that probably this is the right way to structure the Bill. In any case, it is certainly structured in a way that, when everything is read together in the right way, does not create the gap that I was worried about, as the car moves between automated and non-automated mode. That was the critical issue.
Graham P. Jones
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bailey. I seek clarity from the Minister—I know he has been reasonably descriptive up to a point—on the types of vehicles that will and will not be insured. It will probably be connected and automated vehicles, automation level 4 and 5; however, I am concerned about the size and shape of the vehicles and how the legislation will fit them in the future.
There has been an issue about insuring automated vehicles, not just on public but on private land. However, even on public land, are there situations where we might see a size of vehicle—my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull East drives a very small electric vehicle, and there might be even smaller ones—on parts of the road network that had become accessible to new types of electric vehicle, and where we might suddenly need to reflect on the type of insurance? They may get down to the size of a bicycle, for example—I do not know—so are there circumstances or situations where the shape and size of the vehicle would have some effect? I suppose that relates to the definition of level 3 and 4 automation. I know that the Minister will produce a list in future guidance, but I would welcome a clarification from him on shape and size, how the Government see that changing and whether they will be responsive to that.
Going back to insurance on private land, this causes an enormous problem, quite apart from my earlier point about mapping. The legislation says that vehicles must be insured on public and private land—although there are some discrepancies around private land. How will this work with automated vehicles? If we multiply that by the fact that the shape and form of automated vehicles may change—they may be able to go down narrow footpaths, for example—where are the Government on the insurance system? How it will work with automated vehicles accessing private land? I am asking for clarity on this point. I do not know the answer; I am probing the Minister to see if he does. There seems to be a complex minefield of issues when it comes to insuring an automated vehicle—of whatever shape, form or function—that can wander off on to private land. There does not seem to be much clarity in the Bill on that. It seems to be hanging on the old legislation for traditional motor vehicles as we know them and how they are insured on the current road network.
Turning to automated vehicles, in particular on private land, and their shape and form, this will clearly be a challenge, so will the Minister clarify how the Government will respond? Again, I come back to the mapping issue. There will surely need to be tighter definitions of where automated vehicles go and what they are allowed to do. There seems to be no reference to that in the guidance or anywhere else. Will the Minister provide some clarity? People want to know. It is not just about the public highways, motorways, A roads and B roads. It is far bigger than that and the insurance system has to cope with insurance off-road, on private land.
Mr Hayes
By way of adding a certain excitement to the proceedings, I shall deal with the last point first, rather than reply to the points made in chronological order.
The hon. Member for Hyndburn spoke about where vehicles might be used, and the size and shape of vehicles. He was right to identify that it may be—note the emphasis on “may”—that autonomous vehicles at the beginning of their life on our roads are typically used in certain places and in certain ways. One can easily imagine a vehicle in autonomous mode travelling on a long straight road—a motorway, for example. It could be that that is the way the technology will develop. He is right to draw attention to that because it has been written and spoken about many times in the discussions about autonomous vehicles. He was also right to raise the matter of shape and size. Earlier in our considerations, we discussed vehicles other than private cars. Of course we should not assume that autonomous vehicles will simply be private motor cars. There will be other kinds of autonomous road vehicle and it may be that they will develop first, or at least in parallel with the development of private cars.
The hon. Gentleman is right that that could well be where we are heading, but the essence of his argument is that we might have to have different insurance policies to deal with those different eventualities. That will not result from the measure before us; the size and place considerations—the type of vehicle and where it is used—will be the same as in the current insurance framework, most of which is covered by the Road Traffic Act, so I do not anticipate a huge departure from existing practice.
In essence, insurance works on the basis of insuring people, to some degree taking account of what they are driving—for example, policies take account of the size and shape of vehicles. I do not imagine that that will change and nothing in the Bill suggests otherwise. I anticipate—the insurance industry told us this in evidence submitted to the Committee—that the industry wants enough certainty from the Bill to develop products that are fit for purpose. My judgment, from what we have been told, is that the industry will want such products to mirror as much as possible what is available now. Certainly that is true of where vehicles are used and of their shape and size.
Graham P. Jones
I was simply probing the Minister because the use of automated vehicles on private land is an interesting area on which the Government must be probed. I also made some other small points. I urge him to clarify whether he foresees any situations, beyond what is in regulation or statute now, where automated vehicles on private land may provide a challenge that the Government will need to look at.
Mr Hayes
I will deal with the private land point in a moment.
To re-emphasise: when we insure a vehicle at the moment, the questions we are asked by the insurer are not about where we intend to drive it—we are not interrogated about whether we will drive the vehicle on the motorway, on side roads or only in our village. That is not typically what happens with an insurance policy, although there are exceptions. Someone with a historic vehicle, for example—a classic or vintage vehicle—might well take out an insurance policy stipulating that the vehicle will only be used for a certain number of miles in a given period, paying a lower premium as a result. If people say that they will use their vehicle only on high days and holidays and that it will be driven for less than 100 miles a year, of course they will obtain a different kind of policy, often offered by a specialist provider. That, however, is an exception. As a rule, we are not interrogated about where we are going to drive, whether it be on a main arterial route or a side route, so I do not think that the insurance products that I hope are developed as a result of the Bill will, in those terms, be very different from what we have now.
That is certainly what the Association of British Insurers and others have told us. The evidence to the Committee emphasises not only the insurance industry’s support for the Government proposals, but its wholehearted support for the development of autonomous vehicles. The industry sees it as critical that we get the legislation on to the statute book so that it can develop the products necessary to provide the safety and security we all seek.
Graham P. Jones
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way one last time. To pursue this matter, let us say that an accident occurs on private land while the vehicle is in autonomous mode. Does he think that the existing regulatory framework is sufficient for insurers, or that some changes will be needed for assigning liability should there be an accident on private land? An automated vehicle goes on to a large piece of private land, a track or whatever, and there is an accident, so there needs to be an investigation as to who was in the right and who was in the wrong. On private land where an automated vehicle was making its own decisions, does he not think the Government should conduct some analysis of the potential issues? It may be that no changes are required, but should not the Government consider it? People do drive on private land, and if they are going to take automated vehicles on to private land, it is a legitimate question.
Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill (Fifth sitting)
Graham P Jones ExcerptsTuesday 14th November 2017
(7 years ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Automated and Electric Vehicles Act 2018 View all Automated and Electric Vehicles Act 2018 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 14 November 2017 - (14 Nov 2017)
Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to recommence the discussion of the Bill under your chairmanship, Mr Bailey.
New clause 9, tabled in my name, states:
“The Secretary of State must bring forward regulations to require that automated vehicles cannot operate in automated mode on public roads unless the application software relating to the vehicle’s automated function is up to date.”
The new clause would require the Government to introduce regulations that require automated vehicles to be up to date in order for them to utilise automated functions on public roads. Under the current drafting, people would be able to drive their automated vehicles on the roads without having the latest up-to-date software, which could lead to safety risks. The new clause would ensure that the Government introduce regulations that require automated vehicles to be up to date in order for the automated function to be used. If a vehicle had a serious mechanical fault that could endanger the driver and others, we would not allow it on our roads. An automated vehicle would similarly present an increased safety risk if its operating system was not updated. Most people with a smartphone or computer are likely to have software that prevents it from being used until it is updated. I am not struck by any reason why a similar mechanism could not be included in automated vehicles. By preventing an un-updated vehicle from being used, we would achieve safer roads and cheaper insurance.
Graham P. Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making a powerful point. This applies most critically to GPS, where there may be changes to roads or whatever. The automated vehicle would need to know where it is going and whether there had been some ad hoc intervention in the road layout that meant that the GPS was inaccurate. Clearly, there would need to be an update. Does he share my view that updates should be regular and frequent, because they are part of the safety process?
Karl Turner
My hon. Friend makes a valid point when he talks about GPS systems. Without the new clause, people would be able to take un-updated vehicles on our roads, without being absolutely sure that they are safe. A primary benefit of AVs is that they reduce the likelihood of human error. However, one of the few areas in which the scope for human error remains—the responsibility for ensuring that software is updated—would not be addressed, even though it would not be difficult to do so. I cannot find any reason why it is not possible to legislate for this. The new clause addresses that obvious issue and I trust that the Government will consider it carefully.
Mr Hayes
I will in a second.
In the end, the clause aims to protect insurers from a negligent person who intentionally fails to update their vehicle. For the sake of clarity, I offer the parallel of someone who fails to ensure that a vehicle they drive now is safe—who fails to take the proper precautions or make the proper arrangements to ensure that their vehicle can be safely driven when they go out in it. So it will be with autonomous vehicles and the software that relates to them. That is the purpose of the clause, but I am not entirely convinced by the advice that I have had on it yet. The civil servants in the room—I know I am not supposed to acknowledge them—will have a shiver going down their spine. I want to reflect more on it. I think we are right and I am sure what I have said is right, but I may have more to say on it. I am happy to reflect on it and come back to my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire if there is more to be said.
Mr Hayes
With laser-like precision, my hon. Friend has focused on exactly the reason why I want to reflect on it. I thought that that was what he might say and that was what he meant when he first spoke. Although the response I offered him goes a fair way towards what he was seeking, I need to clarify that additional consideration for him. In the end, that will bring us back to the point close to the heart of all insurance considerations: how we discern liability and negligence. I want to be more precise about the second point that he raised, but I do not yet feel confident to do that. I will now give way to my old friend—the veteran of many Committees with me.
Graham P. Jones
I am grateful for the Minister’s warm words. To return to the issue of GPS mapping updates, people expect the road network to be updated on vehicles, but the scenario is completely different for manual operation compared with automated operation. I hope the Minister is aware that most of the operated maps sit in the private sector. That is not an issue if the car is manually operated because the driver always has discretion as he sees the road in front of him, but that is not the case in automated mode. We have to think about our highways workers or our police force who may be intervening in the road network.
When we talk about updates, serious consideration needs to be given to GPS maps in automated mode. Who is responsible for them? Who owns them? Who will update them? How will we ensure that we have road safety? Updates are vital, but GPS mapping is particularly vital. The Minister needs to take a good look at that and how it will be integrated into the insurance industry and into the Bill and the regulations to protect our people working on the roads.
Mr Hayes
As I say, the hon. Gentleman is a veteran of many Committees. We have rarely crossed swords, but we have certainly waved swords at each other from time to time. He makes a sound point which is precisely why we would need to address a range of those issues in further regulation. At this juncture, I do not think we can think about adding that to the Bill. I know he did not say we should, but he did say that we should think about those matters and look at how they relate to this Bill subsequently. He is absolutely right.
At the risk of opening up a new avenue for discussion—I hesitate to do that because I know we want to make reasonably rapid progress today—the hon. Gentleman might also have raised the issue of the interface between the driver and the road, and the technology on the road. As we move towards smarter roads, there will be an increasingly close relationship between the information received in the car from outside, as well as the information that is at hand within the vehicle. That is another area where there will be a connection to automated vehicles. We are already seeing the regular use of gantries across roads that provide information. The interaction between that information, the car, and the information that is available locally will, over time, become an increasing feature of driving.
This is another area in which regulation will—in exactly the way the hon. Gentleman described—need to address how that works for automated vehicles. The assurance I give him and others is that we recognise these challenges, we anticipate further work, we know that work is ongoing and it will be set out, both in the formation of international standards for a type-approval process that I mentioned, and in the regulation we will introduce that matches that development.
Sir Oliver Letwin
I am grateful again to the Minister. Yes, exactly: I had been worried about two cases, one in which the person sitting in the driving seat was the owner, and the other in which the person sitting in the driving seat was not the owner but was covered by a policy covering the driving of other cars. In both instances, I think it is clear.
The reason I am labouring these points and asking the Minister to confirm them is that I do not think that any ordinary human being reading the Bill would have the slightest clue that this is what it is trying to do. I think its architecture has been forced on it by the desire to piggyback on the Road Traffic Act; and I suspect that lawyers will understand, because they will be familiar with the Road Traffic Act and how its principles operate. Therefore, I am satisfied that probably this is the right way to structure the Bill. In any case, it is certainly structured in a way that, when everything is read together in the right way, does not create the gap that I was worried about, as the car moves between automated and non-automated mode. That was the critical issue.
Graham P. Jones
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bailey. I seek clarity from the Minister—I know he has been reasonably descriptive up to a point—on the types of vehicles that will and will not be insured. It will probably be connected and automated vehicles, automation level 4 and 5; however, I am concerned about the size and shape of the vehicles and how the legislation will fit them in the future.
There has been an issue about insuring automated vehicles, not just on public but on private land. However, even on public land, are there situations where we might see a size of vehicle—my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull East drives a very small electric vehicle, and there might be even smaller ones—on parts of the road network that had become accessible to new types of electric vehicle, and where we might suddenly need to reflect on the type of insurance? They may get down to the size of a bicycle, for example—I do not know—so are there circumstances or situations where the shape and size of the vehicle would have some effect? I suppose that relates to the definition of level 3 and 4 automation. I know that the Minister will produce a list in future guidance, but I would welcome a clarification from him on shape and size, how the Government see that changing and whether they will be responsive to that.
Going back to insurance on private land, this causes an enormous problem, quite apart from my earlier point about mapping. The legislation says that vehicles must be insured on public and private land—although there are some discrepancies around private land. How will this work with automated vehicles? If we multiply that by the fact that the shape and form of automated vehicles may change—they may be able to go down narrow footpaths, for example—where are the Government on the insurance system? How it will work with automated vehicles accessing private land? I am asking for clarity on this point. I do not know the answer; I am probing the Minister to see if he does. There seems to be a complex minefield of issues when it comes to insuring an automated vehicle—of whatever shape, form or function—that can wander off on to private land. There does not seem to be much clarity in the Bill on that. It seems to be hanging on the old legislation for traditional motor vehicles as we know them and how they are insured on the current road network.
Turning to automated vehicles, in particular on private land, and their shape and form, this will clearly be a challenge, so will the Minister clarify how the Government will respond? Again, I come back to the mapping issue. There will surely need to be tighter definitions of where automated vehicles go and what they are allowed to do. There seems to be no reference to that in the guidance or anywhere else. Will the Minister provide some clarity? People want to know. It is not just about the public highways, motorways, A roads and B roads. It is far bigger than that and the insurance system has to cope with insurance off-road, on private land.
Mr Hayes
By way of adding a certain excitement to the proceedings, I shall deal with the last point first, rather than reply to the points made in chronological order.
The hon. Member for Hyndburn spoke about where vehicles might be used, and the size and shape of vehicles. He was right to identify that it may be—note the emphasis on “may”—that autonomous vehicles at the beginning of their life on our roads are typically used in certain places and in certain ways. One can easily imagine a vehicle in autonomous mode travelling on a long straight road—a motorway, for example. It could be that that is the way the technology will develop. He is right to draw attention to that because it has been written and spoken about many times in the discussions about autonomous vehicles. He was also right to raise the matter of shape and size. Earlier in our considerations, we discussed vehicles other than private cars. Of course we should not assume that autonomous vehicles will simply be private motor cars. There will be other kinds of autonomous road vehicle and it may be that they will develop first, or at least in parallel with the development of private cars.
The hon. Gentleman is right that that could well be where we are heading, but the essence of his argument is that we might have to have different insurance policies to deal with those different eventualities. That will not result from the measure before us; the size and place considerations—the type of vehicle and where it is used—will be the same as in the current insurance framework, most of which is covered by the Road Traffic Act, so I do not anticipate a huge departure from existing practice.
In essence, insurance works on the basis of insuring people, to some degree taking account of what they are driving—for example, policies take account of the size and shape of vehicles. I do not imagine that that will change and nothing in the Bill suggests otherwise. I anticipate—the insurance industry told us this in evidence submitted to the Committee—that the industry wants enough certainty from the Bill to develop products that are fit for purpose. My judgment, from what we have been told, is that the industry will want such products to mirror as much as possible what is available now. Certainly that is true of where vehicles are used and of their shape and size.
Graham P. Jones
I was simply probing the Minister because the use of automated vehicles on private land is an interesting area on which the Government must be probed. I also made some other small points. I urge him to clarify whether he foresees any situations, beyond what is in regulation or statute now, where automated vehicles on private land may provide a challenge that the Government will need to look at.
Mr Hayes
I will deal with the private land point in a moment.
To re-emphasise: when we insure a vehicle at the moment, the questions we are asked by the insurer are not about where we intend to drive it—we are not interrogated about whether we will drive the vehicle on the motorway, on side roads or only in our village. That is not typically what happens with an insurance policy, although there are exceptions. Someone with a historic vehicle, for example—a classic or vintage vehicle—might well take out an insurance policy stipulating that the vehicle will only be used for a certain number of miles in a given period, paying a lower premium as a result. If people say that they will use their vehicle only on high days and holidays and that it will be driven for less than 100 miles a year, of course they will obtain a different kind of policy, often offered by a specialist provider. That, however, is an exception. As a rule, we are not interrogated about where we are going to drive, whether it be on a main arterial route or a side route, so I do not think that the insurance products that I hope are developed as a result of the Bill will, in those terms, be very different from what we have now.
That is certainly what the Association of British Insurers and others have told us. The evidence to the Committee emphasises not only the insurance industry’s support for the Government proposals, but its wholehearted support for the development of autonomous vehicles. The industry sees it as critical that we get the legislation on to the statute book so that it can develop the products necessary to provide the safety and security we all seek.
Graham P. Jones
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way one last time. To pursue this matter, let us say that an accident occurs on private land while the vehicle is in autonomous mode. Does he think that the existing regulatory framework is sufficient for insurers, or that some changes will be needed for assigning liability should there be an accident on private land? An automated vehicle goes on to a large piece of private land, a track or whatever, and there is an accident, so there needs to be an investigation as to who was in the right and who was in the wrong. On private land where an automated vehicle was making its own decisions, does he not think the Government should conduct some analysis of the potential issues? It may be that no changes are required, but should not the Government consider it? People do drive on private land, and if they are going to take automated vehicles on to private land, it is a legitimate question.
Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill (First sitting)
Graham P Jones ExcerptsTuesday 31st October 2017
(7 years ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Automated and Electric Vehicles Act 2018 View all Automated and Electric Vehicles Act 2018 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 31 October 2017 - (31 Oct 2017)
Iain Stewart
Q
David Williams: My understanding is that that sounds very good in principle, but how do you define that extent? Many upgrades might have a degree of safety- critical improvements in their nature. How would you define the seriousness of the upgrade?
Ben Howarth: Clause 4(6)(b) is a definition—that feels to me like it means that it is unsafe to use. If you started saying at this stage a car must be immobilised, we would potentially be legislating for things that we do not know the manufacturers will do in every circumstance. There might be times when the car could move. It might be safe to move it at 20 miles per hour or so—I am just speculating. Is it right to put it in the Bill at this stage? I would definitely say that it is something that needs to be carefully defined and thought about when you create the list of automated vehicles. I know we keep coming back to “the list is everything”, but I think the list is the mechanism by which many of the potential problems of the Bill will get solved.
Graham P. Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)
Q
Let me lay out an example and ask your view of the Bill. If somebody switches to manual from automated and is involved in an accident while in excess of 30 miles per hour. What happens next? How much of that data becomes available in the case that ensues? For instance, I presume that speed would be used, but what about the on-board cameras or anything else? How much of this data will be kept, retained and used from the functions of the vehicle for a case in which there is an accident with a driver in manual mode? Does the Bill provide a robust framework for accidents and insurance claims and what about road safety? Will it enhance road safety or are we stopping at legitimate information for insurance companies? Should the Bill also include data made available so that road safety is improved?
Iwan Parry: The basis of the question is around the availability of data. My technical background is in forensic accident investigation and in order to investigate accidents—to get to the root cause—we need to start at the before-accident period and understand as much as we can. We are limited today to things such as skid marks, as David referred to earlier, as the tools to reconstruct those accidents. The kinds of data that are potentially available from electronic vehicles increase the amount of data significantly. With the cameras, radar, lidar—light detection and ranging—and ultrasonic sensors we can get a very clear picture of what was going on around the vehicle at the time of an incident. When we look at the consequences of an incident, we can put the two together and have a very clear understanding from establishing liability and whether that indicates that the vehicle in some way behaved unreasonably—or that the driver, pedestrian or cyclist that it was interacting with behaved unreasonably given the context of the situation. That gives us the information that would allow us to make a determination on liability. I think that is critical to insurers, to police investigating such incidents and to road safety in the future.
To advance the future legislation on autonomous vehicles, we will need a method to understand what is going wrong in the real world. We will also need a method to use that information to improve our understanding of vehicle functioning in the real world and how that can be improved by manufacturers or by legislators applying the right tools to ensure that vehicle performance is improved over time.
Ben Howarth: If I could add the insurance perspective on that, for what we need to do for this Bill—to establish whether the car was in automated or manual mode—we need a fairly limited amount of data. You mentioned speed, but we do not necessarily need speed to do that. We just need to know whether it was in automated mode. There are potentially lots of other uses for car data for the police and for accident investigators. In a disputed claim with contradictory evidence in court, you could find it a lot easier to solve cases with data, but I would draw a distinction between the data that insurers need to make this Bill operational and the data from cars that would be useful to understand claims. That might be a valid concern for vehicles not covered by this Bill; as cars get more technically sophisticated with more assisted functions, you might want to understand more about how it works for any car. I think whether it is reasonable to ask for data is still best managed via a judge.
It is also important, if we want the data, that manufacturers record it. My understanding is that at the moment, if you hit a pedestrian in an accident, you will not necessarily trigger an airbag so the data that the car keeps on a rolling basis are not automatically recorded or stored and they would not be available. As part of the work to define an automated car, we need more clarity about what data are recorded and stored and about the process to ensure that the data are sent to the right people at the right time. An insurer is one party that would want some of the data.
Graham P. Jones
Q
David Williams: My view is that the Bill undoubtedly aids road safety because it will encourage the use of safer vehicles on the roads, but in terms of data, no—the Bill does not have a robust framework for provision, storage and transmission of those data. I think that is partly because of the stage that we are at. Some things are contentious and some are not. Data sharing is really contentious, whether because of general data protection regulation or because motor manufacturers are concerned about infringement of their intellectual property. We are very keen for there to be some clarity about the storage and transmission of data, the form that data are transmitted in so that they are useful, and the speed of transmission—there is no point us getting the data three months later. That is not in the Bill.
When we had the original discussions, we talked about data. We were still forming our opinions about what data would be required—as I say, that is very contentious. Our view was that it was better to support a Bill that would be part of a rolling programme of legislation and acknowledge that more needed to be done on that data piece than to delay it. We feel that delaying connected and autonomous vehicles hitting our roads would have a negative impact on road safety.
The Chair
Waiting to ask questions, I have Sir Oliver Letwin, Craig Tracey, Alan Brown, Edward Argar, Scott Mann and Sir Greg Knight. Is there anybody else? Clive Efford, you wish to come in with another?
The Chair
I have Scott Mann and the Minister. Does anybody else want to ask this particular panel a question?
Scott Mann
Just a simple yes or no.
Diana Holland: The potential is there, but it is not automatic unless a range of other things are followed up at the same time. It would be fantastic to find ways of developing this so that there is social inclusion for both rural areas and for disabled people, who are currently denied opportunities, but it has to be part of an overall approach to an integrated transport policy. Otherwise there is a danger that we just end up replicating congestion of one kind with another, with different insurance. However, there is a way of using this to develop a whole range of things, including much broader social inclusion.
Rob Johnston: I would add, as I did earlier, that if we are providing transport mechanisms, whatever they look like, for individuals who cannot drive for whatever reason, we need to provide a transport mechanism that allows the transport method to make decisions for them. That needs to be regulated and we need to be confident that the decisions being made by that vehicle, whatever type it is, are the right ones. That is determined by the algorithms and software behind it, so we need to have confidence that those are right. That is because you could potentially take vulnerable people and put them into a vehicle they are not in control of.
Graham P. Jones
Q
Diana Holland: Again, it does not have to have any impact on employment in terms of the two relatively minor areas that it could be argued that it covers; but the potential is there to enable a wholesale change to a different method, and ultimately saying that the professional driver no longer has a role. There are extremes in approaching this. We would say that it does not have to do away with employment, but plenty of estimates have shown that if it is introduced in one way, that is the effect it will have.
Our immediate concerns regarding the phrasing of the Bill are on the impact on those people currently employed, or under a range of contracts, and responsible for a vehicle, who would find themselves potentially liable in a way that we hope is not the intention. We really think that needs to be looked at to ensure that it does not encompass all kinds of people who we do not think should be liable in those circumstances. There are specific concerns around taxi drivers who own their own vehicles. There are issues around road haulage, where certain people are required to establish themselves as a limited company or to be self-employed to have jobs, but the definition bears questions. We need to ensure that we are not extending liability here beyond where it ought to be, when the operation is run and owned by a third party.
Rob Johnston: If I can briefly add to that answer, KPMG produced a report that said there are potentially 25,000 additional jobs directly working in the automation industry by 2030. A potential 320,000 jobs that could be created, but there is a caveat to that: Government policy is needed to address the growing skills gap, otherwise there is a risk of losing more than £50 billion in GDP per annum. Those are statistics provided by the transport systems Catapult.
Mr Hayes
Q
Adrian Jones: Yes, I would certainly say that we would welcome the opportunity. While the date for roads full of fully automated vehicles is an unknown, as is the impact, our members already have concerns. In manufacturing, the apprentices needed are not engineering apprentices in the traditional sense; they are software engineer apprentices. In road transport, we have fitters and engineers who are up to their elbows in grease, but in just a few years’ time they will be up to their elbows in keyboards, iPads and screens, which is a completely different skillset.
We also need to recognise that there is concern about skills. As you know, Minister, there is a widespread acknowledgement of a driver shortage in the UK. You already know my views on that. Our members already have concerns that the technology is being used as a smokescreen in effect to say, “We can use this technology to address that skills shortage”, but it will not do that, because employers will see it as a way of reducing cost, rather than filling the skills gap.
One expert that I heard on the venerable Radio 4 was asked about the job shift of a bus driver when that bus was fully automated. The expert said, “Jobs will be created. There may be a café on the bus and they could work in the café.” That is not comparable work. Yes, it is a job, but going from a skilled position to working in a café—no disrespect to any café workers—is not maintaining a standard of living or the same income to that family or the Treasury. There has to be a real debate now, not only on the future, but on the impact that new technologies are having on the transport industry and workers today.
Graham P. Jones
Q
I want to ask a particular question at the end about vehicle variations. Does the Bill accommodate what we will see in the future? I believe we will see different types of vehicle variation, because there will be electric vehicles instead of just the four-seater saloon car.
Robert Llewellyn: There are three things that would be wonderful. I am definitely not an expert, but when you have seen this you can see how popular it is: community electric car sharing/ownership/use. When those little systems organised by local communities appear, they are very popular with the local community. I have seen this in small towns rather than big cities.
Graham P. Jones
Q
Robert Llewellyn: Almost, yes. Also, they would have a dedicated place where you would park and charge them, so you would remove that problem. There are a lot of benefits to that.
The thing I have not seen in the Bill, which is a vitally important part of this, is vehicle-to-grid technology, which is appearing rapidly. It has an enormous impact, potentially, not on vehicles but on the grid. Say there were 3 million electric cars plugged in overnight, that would be a staggering amount of electricity—a very large power station’s worth of stored energy. You only need take a small amount from each vehicle. That technology is available now, not much in this country but it is certainly being used. I have been—I am trying to keep this pithy—to an office in Tokyo that is run by 100 Nissan Leafs that are plugged in outside. They do not use electricity from anywhere else. Those cars are discharging and charging all day, with a guaranteed amount for the owner to get home at night. So that technology already exists.
On fast charging, from my experience of driving many hundreds of thousands of miles in electric cars, slow charging is really good. Destination charging is really good. When you go to a car park and you are there for two hours topping up, it is not rapid charging, not “Gotta fill it in 10 seconds”. That, in a way, is a petrol or diesel mentality: “I’m driving a really long way. I need to fill it really fast”. You do do that, but way less than you might expect—way less. I use a rapid charger 15 or 20 times a year.
But if I can go to a car park where I can just plug the car in while I am in a meeting, or have gone to the movies or to a restaurant, and I add 20, 30 or 40 miles, that is an enormous benefit. Having more places where you can do that, more car parks with chargers fitted—that you ping your card on to pay for the electricity—would be a fantastic change. Those are emerging, and every time I can use one it is an enormous benefit. Two or three hours gives you 20 or 30 miles. You think, “That’s not very much”—well, it is 20 or 30 miles.